MONET AND GIVERNY

                         Monet's Home and Garden
                          

      I was excited to learn we were going to make an unscheduled stop—to Monet’s home and gardens! The highlight of this trip was Normandy so it was a real bonus.

      Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny while looking out of a train window. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint. Monet lived in Giverny from 1883 until his death in 1926. He and many members of his family are interred in the village cemetery.  

      Following restoration, Monet's house and gardens were opened to the public in 1980.We wandered around the lily ponds first and over the stream bridges. The beautiful gardens were so quiet and peaceful. Still

Monet's home

in bloom the gardens were a profusion of color. Sunflowers were 7-8 feet tall with blossoms the size of dinner plates. I was able to identify many of the flowers but there were also many that I could not. I look a lot of pictures and my very favorite, which is now my screen saver, is a gorgeous pink and white peony, the bloom of which rivaled the size of the sunflowers!

      Monet initially painted the countryside, but after buying the house, he began transforming the gardens. He used different heights to create volume. Fruit trees or ornamental trees dominate the climbing roses, the long-stemmed hollyhocks and the colored banks of annuals. Monet mixed the simplest flowers, daisies and poppies, with the rare varieties.

Part of his water garden

      The Japanese inspired water garden and the surrounding vegetation form an enclosure separated from the surrounding countryside He had a water-garden constructed, even diverting the local river to achieve his vision.. The famous Japanese bridge was built by a local artisan. The pond was inspiration for his famous water lily paintings. He also painted a lot of weeping willows as a memorial to those lost in WW I. 

      We spent a lot of time on the gardens, and eventually moved into the house. The original house was much smaller than it is today. Monet enlarged it on both sides. Monet loved color and chose all the colors in the home. The house is pink with green shutters—a marked deviation of the normal grey shutters of Victorian times. The barn next to the house became his first studio, thanks to the addition of a wooden floor and of stairs leading to the main house. Monet, who mostly painted in the open air, needed a place to finish and his store canvases.

      Monet added a gallery in front of the house; a pergola covered with climbing roses, and grew a Virginia creeper on the façade---he wanted the house to blend with the garden. 

      Blue is used extensively throughout the home. The dining room though is painted a vibrant yellow with blue tiles to coordinate with the blue kitchen when the door was open. Walls showcased Japanese engravings that Monet chose with an expert eye. For fifty years, he collected the prints by the best Japanese artists.

      Monet was one of few who became famous during his lifetime, although he had to wait until he was fifty before he was recognized as a master.

      It was a thrilling visit that definitely put Giverny  on my revisit list!